What Ben has been doing

Broken, or is Gumper just messing with us?

The functional lives of appliances in our home is not always very long. If you consider the fact that six kids put a lot of wear and tear on 'stuff' this is not surprising at all. Add in a husband who doesn't always remember to switch the voltages and you have even more destruction.

Recently the portable DVD player quit working. I drained and re-charged the battery, tried different discs, turned it on and off and finally gave up on it when only sound, no video, emerged. It was our only currently functioning DVD player (the big box doesn't seem to like running on a converter) so I made the decision that it had to be replaced. Want to know what happened the day I received the email from Amazon telling me that our new portable DVD player had been shipped?
I guess we're just doing our part to help the economy?

Play a ME!

This afternoon the boy informed me that we were going to play HIM game. Usually this means he wants a turn on the laptop, but today it meant that he wanted to set up Die Siedler von Catan game and take pictures of us playing. He loves photo booth, and so do I. In my world anything which can entertain a toddler for a solid 15 minutes means I can get something done! Not today, though since we were playing.

So he showed me how to set up the board. Sadly, my settlements never made it to the board since the boss decided 'onny norange' could play today. I think he only wanted to play the game since he's watched his siblings and father play it for the last few days. From this I have learned that I do not have the attention span necessary to play such a game as settlers.

Sadly, he lost interest in the board game, (must get his short attention span from his mommy) but I have very many blurry photos of my toddler, and 3 clear ones. So far the ratio seems to be about 20:1

This is mine! And. . . this is mine! And. . . THIS is mine!

I wonder sometimes if we are somehow all repeating the same script from Jung's collective unconscious. For example, when meeting someone and they find out I have 6 (SIX!) children the following question and statement nearly always follow:

SIX? Are they all yours?

Wow, you must have your hands full!

(answers: yes and yes)


And yes, we are very blessed.

Firsts in 2009

1. I got my first passport. At the age of 34.
2. The kids and I left North America for the first time
3. We tried lots of new foods: schnitzel, currywurst, christknollen, leubchen, doners sauerbrauten. And we tried lots and LOTS of new pastries and breads.
4. We tried some new fruits and decided that none of us like grenadilla. We call it the banana snot fruit
5. We tried to sell our house. Here's to hoping 2010 holds more luck in that department

My goal for 2010 is to embrace more adventure. Even if travel in Europe is NOT child-friendly. See? Look at me talking myself out of traveling already!

Right now Noah and I are eating buah pulasan fruits. They look like spiky red balls, but taste like sourish grapes. Adventure!

To start the new year off on the right foot

Hereby resolved: to eat more yummy stuff

Holiday traditions

Making Grandma's butter rolls
















acting out the nativity























New Christmas jammies


Loot



New game for our New Year's celebrations!